eaaron@colby.edu
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Fall 2024 Office Hours (Davis 113)
• M 4:00-5:00pm,
• T 3:30-4:30pm,
• W 1:00-2:00pm,
• F TBD,
and by email appointment.
• Note that times for office hours may change slightly as the semester gets started.
Updates will be posted on this page.
• For the time being, you may be asked to wear a mask when in my office hours.
Courses, Fall 2024
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CS 231 Data Structures and Algorithms
M W F 12:00noon-12:50pm, Diamond 141
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CS 378: Theory of Computation
M W 2:30-3:45pm, Davis 117
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News--Embodied Computational Evolution Papers Published in Biology and Robotics / AI Journals
Co-authored with John Long, our paper Embodied Computational Evolution: A Model for Investigating Randomness and the Evolution of Morphological Complexity was recently published in the journal Integrative Organismal Biology. This is the first journal paper on the Embodied Computational Evolution (ECE) modeling framework specifically written for a Biology venue!
It is the third publication in a planned trilogy of papers on our work on biorobotics, evolutionary dynamics, and ECE so far. The first two, co-authored with Joshua Hawthorne-Madell and Ken Livingston, are published in Frontiers in Robotics and AI: Morphological Evolution: Bioinspired Methods for Analyzing Bioinspired Robots, and Embodied Computational Evolution: Feedback Between Development and Evolution in Simulated Biorobots.
News--NIH-Funded Game: GENOMICE
A team from Colby, SIFT, and Jackson Labs was recently awarded a $400,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health to begin development of GENOMICE, an interactive video game to teach genomics concepts to undergraduate and high school students! I am co-PI on the grant, and I will contribute pedagogy, ensure that our team's pedagogical expertise is represented well in the computer programming of GENOMICE, and co-lead AI development.
News--Forthcoming Textbook from Taylor & Francis / Routledge / CRC Press
My CS346 course at Colby teaches upper-level programmers mechanistic computational modeling and simulation--programming scientific mechanisms as computational models, and running simulations to illuminate the underlying science--as well as the programming techniques that can make computer scientists more productive contributors to interdisciplinary computational science. Now, I've signed a contract with CRC Press (part of Taylor & Francis / Routledge) to publish a textbook based on this material! (Target publication date: 2025)
News--AAAI (Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence) Undergraduate Consortium
At the 2021 and 2022 AAAI Conferences,
I co-Chaired the Undergraduate Consortium, an opportunity for a selected group of undergraduate scholars to meet peers and professionals, and to receive mentorship and resources to help in pursuing a career in AI research. You can check out the programs of each year's Undergraduate Consortium (2021, 2022) and a YouTube playlist of our scholars' videos describing their research!
News--WIREs Cognitive Science Journal
I have recently joined the Editorial Board of WIREs (Wiley Interdisciplinary
Reviews) as the Computer Science and Robotics Editor for
WIREs Cognitive Science. I'm very excited to be part of a group that
promotes the communication of important Computer Science and Robotics
research in a forum for the Cognitive Science community!
News--E-Book: Evolvability, Environments, Embodiment & Emergence in Robotics
Along with colleagues John Long (Vassar College) and Stéphane Doncieux (Université Pierre et Marie Curie), I have co-edited a Frontiers Research Topic called Evolvability, Environments, Embodiment & Emergence in Robotics.
In November 2018, this research topic was published as an e-book, free to download! I hope anyone interested in this fascinating interdisciplinary area will check it out!
Research Interests
Interdisciplinary Computational Science, Robotics, Computational Modeling and Simulation, Artificial Intelligence, Hybrid Systems, System Verification, Cognitive Science
CV / Selected Publications
My CV is available in PDF format.
Some selected publications, indicative of some primary interests:
- Embodied Computational Evolution: A Model for Investigating Randomness and the Evolution of Morphological Complexity.
E. Aaron and J. H. Long, Jr.
Integrative Organismal Biology, 21 August 2024. https://doi.org/10.1093/iob/obae032
- Morphological Evolution: Bioinspired Methods for Analyzing Bioinspired Robots.
E. Aaron, J. Hawthorne-Madell, K. Livingston, and J. H. Long, Jr.
Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 14 January, 2022. https://doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2021.717214
- Embodied Computational Evolution: Feedback Between Development and Evolution in Simulated Biorobots.
J. Hawthorne-Madell, E. Aaron, K. Livingston, and J. H. Long, Jr.
Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 10 June, 2021. https://doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2021.674823
- Toward Population-Level Biohybrid Systems: Bioinspiration and Behavior.
E. Aaron and J. H. Long, Jr.
Conference on Artificial Life (ALIFE 2021), 46-48, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1162/isal_a_00432
- Epigenetic operators and the evolution of physically embodied robots.
J. Brawer, A. Hill, K. Livingston, E. Aaron, J. Bongard and J. H. Long.
Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 24 January, 2017.
https://doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2017.00001
- Dynamical Intention: Integrated Intelligence Modeling for Goal-Directed Embodied Agents.
Eric Aaron
Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 17 November, 2016.
https://doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2016.00066
- Understanding the U.S. Domestic Computer Science Ph.D. Pipeline.
S. Hambrusch, R. Libeskind-Hadas, and E. Aaron.
Communications of the ACM, 58(8), 29--32, 2015.
- Multi-robot foremost coverage of time-varying graphs.
E. Aaron, D. Krizanc, and E. Meyerson.
10th International Symposium on Algorithms and Experiments for Sensor Systems, Wireless Networks and Distributed Robotics (ALGOSENSORS 2014), 22--38, 2014.
Other Noteworthy Publications
- Modal Logic Semantics
One way to avoid difficulties with partial functions is by
employing the notion of underspecification. In modal
logic S5 and some semantically related logics,
underspecification preserves validity, so incorporating
underspecification into their semantics does not change the
classes of valid formulae. A formalization of
underspecification and results for these modal logics are
concisely presented in Formal justification of
underspecification for S5 (co-author: David Gries).
- The Monty Hall Problem
The notorious brainteaser "The Monty Hall Problem"
(also called "The Three Doors Problem") is the source of much debate.
Would people be more likely
to correctly perform the underlying mathematics if the puzzle were presented
in a frequency format rather than a probability format?
Would people be more likely to arrive at the correct answer?
Results are reported in Frequency vs. probability
formats: Framing the three doors problem
(PDF version) (co-author: Michael Spivey).
This paper is also extensively quoted on pages 149-151 of the book
The Monty Hall Problem (Oxford University Press, 2009).
- Nuprl
Most documentation about the Nuprl automated reasoning system
has been written from an "insider's"
perspective. I used the system but was not involved in its
development; I have a user's perspective. My A
User-Level Introduction to the Nuprl Proof Development System
(PDF version) was solicited by the Nuprl
group at Cornell University.
Non-academic stuff
Music is one of my most important non-academic interests. I
have written about music (album reviews
and features), broadcast as a jazz DJ (a weekly
commercial radio show), and played in a few rock bands
that successfully made it out of the garage.
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